


Retreat (Safety)

by thesunsaid



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Extended Scene, Gen, spoilers for c2 e89: Lingering Wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22064620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesunsaid/pseuds/thesunsaid
Summary: His friends are fighting and Caleb uses Frumpkin's eyes to keep an eye on them.---This is an extension of the pit fighting scene in e89: Lingering Wounds, and perhaps how Caleb is dealing with being back in Rexxentrum.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24
Collections: Critmas Exchange 2019





	Retreat (Safety)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elleskinner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elleskinner/gifts).



> Happy New Year! I hope that you enjoy this little exploration into Caleb's mind and his connection to Frumpkin.

It's been difficult to let go of Frumpkin here. Caleb has found his fingers buried in the fur of his friend, his familiar as the memory of his boyhood plays out before him in real time. Rexxentrum is just as he remembers. It's difficult not to feel like he's supposed to be somewhere else. Like he's supposed to be with someone else, like he  _ is _ someone else, here… now.

In the last year, he's worked hard to shake that feeling. That lingering dread curling at the corners of his mind when it's quiet and dark. When there's not a sleeping goblin at his side to keep him warm, to remind him how different his life has become.

He watches his friends fight, hands tightly wound around his cat to feel Frumpkin's presence. The last time he watched them do this, he sent Frumpkin ahead to stand near the ring, to stand in waiting, just in case. That was then. That was before they'd opened up this city from his memory and stepped deep inside it.

There's Beauregard first and he watches, drifting without effort into Frumpkin's mind, behind his cat's eyes. The pit shrinks slightly, tinted different but he recognizes his friends, picks up on the sweetness of Jester's scent nearby, the closeness of Caduceus' earthy musk. In the distance Beau fights, teases more like, and his eyes are drawn to the speed of her movements. Instinct in Frumpkin's body draws him upright, sitting back on sturdy haunches in his lap.

It's over before it's barely begun and Beauregard celebrates and for the moments between he's himself again. Drawn back into his own body by the smile on his face, the praise from his lips. It's easy to be pleased at her win.

Fjord strikes an impressive figure in the pit, starting calm, showing the recent benefits of his agreement with the Wildmother. Caleb can nearly feel the pride from Caduceus beside him, like a cool breeze in the midst of this warm sunken room.

Caleb doesn't mean to do it, but his mind wanders. There's a room too nearby that still calls to him. There's a house and a woman, and a friend, and a traitor too close for comfort. His fingers curl under Frumpkin's front legs, seeking reality in the warmth and silky hair. It's the purr that settles him, brings him to himself long enough to hear the crowd. His eyes focus down, finding Fjord swept up in a fight beyond his control.

As his concentration shifts, Frumpkin stands in his lap and watches, purr turning to soft growl as they watch Fjord fall and rise, and fall again at the hands of this paladin. The end of the fight is swift and as the crowd grows wilder at Fjord's loss, Caleb has no retreat from the noise and the excitement save one. Frumpkin's ears twitch at the sound too, but it's easier somehow. In the Frumpkin's head, the sound is less consuming, less contained. He can move Frumpkin's ears, turning away from the closest and highest sounds until the crowd hushes and prepares for the last fight.

Something in Yasha is both wild and carefully restrained, the ozone in the air as she strides into the pit makes Frumpkin's nose twitch. Caleb watches from Frumpkin's eyes, the darkening shadows surrounding the pit as the crowd leans in and the dwarven champion moves toward Yasha. The crowd loves her, this champion, but Caleb's not watching her.

He knows what Yasha is capable of, they've all seen her fight and been on the receiving end of her heavy blows. That's not the Yasha in the pit. She's imposing, intimidating, and Frumpkin's hair stands on end in the silence between attacks. The dwarven woman seethes, she huffs, she rages with digging nails and her own heavy weight. But Yasha has their attention. She's purposeful, she's restrained and patient. She's not just encouraging the attack, she's taking them, blow after blow landing and Caleb looks up through Frumpkin's gaze, as if there's an invisible storm gathering over their heads.

He lets his grip loosen on the cat, taps the retreating rump of the creature as it jumps from his lap. He doesn't see the fight to know what's happening. Yasha doesn't raise her voice, she doesn't rage, she doesn't fight back. He knows that feeling. He scratches his arms, hugging himself in the absence of his cat, winding his sight down to the pit in Frumpkin's body.

In the building tension, he let's Frumpkin continue toward the exit of the pit and snaps back into his body. He watches Yasha as she falls, as she holds herself against her own rage. Caleb can't say he knows exactly what she's been through in her absence from the Mighty Nein, but he understands what it's like to his power used against his will. To want to stop. To suffer. He knows what it's like to comb back to his body in a different place, in a different time and retain the difference in his memory.

Frumpkin finds Yasha's ankles as she leaves the pit, smelling of sweat and blood and healing magic. He wends around her boots as she greets their friends and he purrs, head against her ankles. If she feels him, he doesn't know. His tail loops up and brushes her shin as she moves past him with their friends. When Caleb finds them, Frumpkin uses the wizard's coat to find his way back up onto Caleb's shoulders.

The night air holds none of the stale tension of the fighting pit or the sweet metal scent of the butcher shop above it. Frumpkin curls around Caleb's shoulders, tail looping down over the top of the wizard's coat and down his back. Their friends talk excitedly as they reunite with Nott, who hands them each a dry, earthly lump of fabric in a variety of shapes. Frumpkin's eyes close as Caleb reaches up and curls his fingers into his scruff. He doesn't mind the tension in Caleb's scritching or the halting strokes as his mind wanders, as he puts another hand on Beauregard and lets his vision and his thoughts retreat for a few minutes more.


End file.
